BRITISH EFFORTS TO PRESERVE PEACE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 154, 17 July 1937, Page 5

BRITISH EFFORTS TO PRESERVE PEACE

LONDON,July 10. England and America, aCting independently, are both using their influence to prevent the North China trouble degenerating into a Sino-Japanese wut, says the Morning Post's diplomatic cdrrespondent. The British Government 's view is that the original incident is not sufficient to justify war, and it has so informed the Japanese Government. It has also urged that both sides should Uot aliow the affair to become magnified by considerations of prestige. TheTe is no question of British mediation. It is nnderstood that the United States Government made similar representations. The Shanghai correspondent of the Times says the erux of the position from the Chinese viewpoint is whethef Nanking will alldw pro-Japanese officials in the nOrth to niake a damaging settlemont, and whether the Chinese army, which for a long time, has been trained for an emergency like the present, will be usea in an attempt to check the intended aggression. There is a large patriotic eiement favouring resistance at any cost. If China is sufiiciently accommodat* ing, a local settlement can doubtless be easily arranged, hut the whole tone o£ the reportS from Tokio is that Japan belieVes China needs a lesson from the powerful Japanese Army, and that, incidental to the lesson, Japan will be able to get whatever she -wants in North China.